


Everybody's Got Something To Hide

by nwspaprtaxis



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Blood Drinking, Confusion, Drinking to Cope, Drunken Confessions, Drunkenness, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fever, Fever Dreams, Gen, Hallucinations, Heavy Drinking, Hell Flashbacks, Hell Trauma, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Lies, Protective Sam Winchester, Season/Series 04, Sick Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-07
Updated: 2011-06-07
Packaged: 2017-12-12 23:12:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/817171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nwspaprtaxis/pseuds/nwspaprtaxis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean's back from Hell and he's not talking about it. Not by a long shot. Sam gets it. He's got secrets of his own. But this time, he's got his priorities straight for once...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everybody's Got Something To Hide

**Author's Note:**

  * For [padavis](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=padavis).



> **_A/N:_** HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE ONE AND ONLY **padavis**! I've enjoyed getting to know you as one of the original members of our little birthday club. Sorry this is a couple of days late. I hope you enjoy this nonetheless and it extends your birthday celebration some. Please see the other Dopey for Davis fics from the usual suspects. Thanks to **Miyo86** for the look-through and brownies to **mad_server** for the final beta.
> 
> This fic takes place in the early part of S4, sometime before _4x10 HEAVEN AND HELL_.
> 
>  ** _Disclaimer:_** Do not own. Am not making a profit. Just simply having fun with their psyches and returning them slightly more battered to Kripke and Co. and all that Yada Yada. Also, _Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey_ (from which I stole the title) is owned by the Beatles and Apple Records and which I have no hope of procuring the rights to.

Sam slips quietly into the darkened motel room, shutting the door behind him, careful not to let it squeak. The hinges still let out a loud squeal and Sam winces. He glances over at the bed nearest to the door and, in the sickly glowworm-yellow streetlamps filtering muddily through the curtains, sees that it is vacant, covers tangled and shoved aside.

“Dean?” he calls softly in the gray darkness. His eyes adjust and he notices there’s light leaking beneath the bathroom door.

He swallows and crosses the room, the stale carpet muffling his footsteps.

“Dean?” he tries again, pushing the cheap, peeling plywood inwards. It swings open easily and Sam’s greeted with the sight of his brother fully clothed, sitting on the damp-looking bathmat that smells of mold, even from the doorway, an empty whiskey bottle lying adjacent to his foot. His back is pressed up against the tub and his legs are drawn up, chin touching chest, hands dangling loosely between his thighs, his body language screaming exhaustion.

Dean lifts his head slowly, as though it’s too heavy for his neck to hold up. He’s chalk-pale, freckles obscured by the livid spots of fever blazing across his cheekbones, eyes glassy and bloodshot. He raises shaky hands and there’s a gun clasped between them. “Sammy…?” His voice is a raspy croak and he doesn’t finish his sentence as his brow furrows in confusion. He levels the gun at Sam. “You’re not real… you can’t be real. It’s a joke, right?”

Sam crouches in the doorway, keeping a healthy, safe distance between them, his eyes never leaving the gun. “No. Why would you say that?”

Dean cocks his head, hesitates.

And Sam takes advantage of it.

It’s too easy to twist the handgun from Dean’s fingers and Sam feels the heat radiating from his brother like a furnace. He doesn’t need a thermometer to tell him that Dean’s fever is somewhere approaching brain-frying temperature. “It’s okay,” he tells Dean, sticking the weapon in his jeans, between his back and waistband. “I gotcha. I’m not going anywhere.” He gets his hands around Dean’s biceps, triceps, and pulls his brother upright.

Dean clings to him, swaying on his feet before blinking and steadying. His jeans are soaked from sitting on the wet carpeting and he’s beginning to shiver. “They were here, Sammy. Th’demons.” His eyes are huge and terrified. “They want me back.”

Sam doesn’t let go. “Let’s get you back to bed,” he whispers evenly, already helping Dean stumble back into the motel room.

**::: ::: :::**

Dean stares up at him, half-masted eyes glittering hard and bright with fever as Sam unlaces and pulls off his boots and jeans. “You left,” he croaks out, his voice sad as Sam covers him with the sheet and the thin blanket. “I woke up and you were gone.”

“Sorry. I just had to run to the twenty-four-seven minimart down the street,” Sam lies easily, thinking of the refilled silver vial in his back pocket, full to the brim of blood-red sulfuric ambrosia.

“Oh.” The ease with which Dean accepts his fib fans the hot coal of rage deep in the pit of his stomach and Sam wants to go into Hell and blast it away. Before, Dean wouldn’t have been so easy to manipulate. Now…

“It’s all right. I’m here. Get some sleep.”

**::: ::: :::**

Dean’s fever climbs and he’s hot and dry, no longer sweating.

Sam rouses him out of his doze to down several Tylenols and some overpriced Gatorade.

Dean spits out the first orange mouthful and mutters something about _Ash_ and _Hell_ and _Fire_ and _Burning_.

There’s a word, all harsh vowels, somewhere between the mumbles but Sam doesn’t quite catch it as he murmurs shushing noises as though his brother is a traumatized victim and empathetically presses the plastic bottle against Dean’s lips again. “You gotta drink.” This time Dean swallows and swallows and drifts under again.

**::: ::: :::**

The phone rings for the fifth time in less than an hour.

“You fucking pick up the phone when I call. You hear me?” Ruby snarls into his ear when he answers it, huddled up in the bathroom, trying not to wake Dean. In his mind’s eye, he can see the petite brunette demon pacing angrily, her tight black leather pants hugging her butt and thighs. “Suppose Lilith was right outside your door?”

“I can handle it,” Sam says, “You’ve been teaching me.”

“Oh, you think you’re ready for the major leagues?” Ruby’s positively spitting. “Well, newsfiash, butterfly. This? This is barely the pony league. You’ve got a long way to go. You’re not even near ready. So when are you gonna meet me? The night’s wasting.”

Sam exhales. “Listen, Ruby, I can't. Not tonight. Dean's sick.”

“Yeah, so? What’re you gonna do? Play nursemaid? Can’t you see it? Dean’s weak. Pathetic. He’s holding you back. You gotta step up. You could save so many more than Clara Barton and her Red Cross ever did.”

“I know… I’m…” Sam doesn’t even know why he’s trying to defend himself against her, doesn’t know why he’s trying to defend his big brother.

There’s a noise and Sam shuts his phone, hanging up on the demon, just as Dean appears in the doorway, pale and defeated, the neck and underarms of his dark gray t-shirt ringed with sweat, and Sam can tell he’s lucid. For the moment, at least. Dean rubs his hand absently against his abdomen, pressing gently. He frowns unhappily.

“I…” He blinks, trails off, his legs buckling. He catches himself on the doorjamb, straightens. “If you wanna go, it’s okay.” His knees are quivering, barely supporting him. “You don’t hafta stay.”

Sam rises from the closed toilet seat, catches Dean as his legs buckle again. “Shut up, Dean. Let’s get you back to bed.”

**::: ::: :::**

The Tylenol doesn’t keep the fever at bay. Not really. Dean’s fever spikes again and burns dry.

Cracking open a bottle of water, fresh and icy, the plastic sweating and slippery in his hands, from the vending machine, Sam surveys his babbling brother. He suspects the fever itself isn’t particularly alarming or life threatening, but the alcohol in his brother’s system is intensifying all the effects — from the dehydration to the delirium.

Dean’s face screws up. “No, please. Idon’twanna. Don’t.” His voice is small, weak. “No more…”

Sam doesn’t say anything as he lifts Dean’s neck and shoulders and pours cold water into his brother’s mouth. Dean doesn’t swallow and it spills over his lips and chin, soaking his shirtfront.

“Yes. Yes I’ll do it. No more. Please.”

“It’s just the fever. You aren’t there,” Sam tells him, briskly stripping Dean of his shirt, switching it out with a dry one from his own stash.

Dean whimpers and tosses his head side-to-side, mumbling deliriously, words slurring. Then he arches his back and screams as though he’s being mauled by hellhounds again.

**::: ::: :::**

Dean doesn’t quiet, not for hours. He thrashes, more from the nightmares than the actual fever, repeating the name _Alastair_ over and over again, as Sam pins him down.

Then he blinks half-awake, drinks down the Gatorade and Tylenol forced into his mouth and fixes Sam with a vague, vacant look. “I could see my intestines,” he tells Sam before closing his eyes.

And drifts off on a fever-current, begging and pleading.

**::: ::: :::**

At dawn, Dean’s fever breaks in a mess of sweaty sheets and drenched clothes and he sleeps.

Then, late in the afternoon, Dean stirs awake, reaches under his bed for the tequila and downs a generous, amber mouthful of Jose Cuervo.

He clears his throat, doesn’t quite meet Sam’s eyes. “So. Uh. Did I say anything weird when I was out of it?”

“No,” Sam tells him. “You didn’t.”

**::: ::: :::**

The next day, they leave and neither of them mention fever-dreams or hellhounds or Hell or eviscerations.

Not until Kentucky, at least.


End file.
